Gravity Well
by dearbluey
Summary: A story of the Capaldi-Doctor and Clara Oswald as they get used to each other once again, and try to save someone who claims to be a "Gallifreyan" from the bottom of an impossible gravity well. Playing a little loose with the lore, I'm afraid to say, but hopefully it will turn out alright. Prologue and chapter one uploaded together. Will update as I can. Comments welcome.
1. Prologue and Chapter 1 - Blame

Gravity Well

A Story of the Doctor and His Companion, Clara Oswald

Prologue

Arrivals were always a noisy affair. What with the atmosphere shrieking around super-heated metal sounding more powerful than the worst storm on the most storm-ravaged planet, and the inevitable tooth-aching sonic boom that followed, it was the sound of a billion billion souls screaming in damned torment – if one's imagination went in that direction.

Served up alongside the entry-sounds was a tremendous shuddering blow upon the earth that shook the entire continent and, a moment later, a thunderous roaring detonation of the arriving ship impacting against the ground.

An elderly man, partly balding and white of hair where it still clung desperately – shaped somewhere between portly and simply fat – held a paintbrush in his unsteady hand. He shook his head slowly, before apparently addressing the air around him.

"Well, my dear, any transmissions before impact?"

A sharp tone came from high above, and to the old man's left a panel flickered to life.

It was a view screen – old, cracked, and more than a little dusty. There had been some time since the last arrival, and the old man wasn't much of a housekeeper. He pulled out a pair of round spectacles and squinted at the screen.

"Feh. Dalek distress call. All that fuss and bother for another bloody Dalek ship."

The fact that the Daleks were a genocidal, insane species of alien that wanted to destroy all forms of life that were not like them was just an irritation at this point. He'd have to stop painting to take care of any possible survivors, or he'd be up to his armpits in their metallic screams of rage. Again.

"Bother and damnation. Can't just one bloody member of my own species wander along? Just one?" he complained to the world at large as he pushed himself to his feet. The world gave no answer, and the nearby view screen went dark.

The old man put down his paintbrush with a soft sigh of exasperation and took a moment to look over the damage wrought upon his creation. A thick slash of crimson ran from one corner up, diagonally through a field of red grass and a beautiful twin-sunned amber sky. Ruined.

"Well, that's another Gallifrey destroyed." he grumbled.

Chapter One

Clara Oswald was getting good at recognizing the sounds that the TARDIS made, and a close approximation of what they meant. For example, the wheezing and groaning sound that had become just white noise in the background indicated that the craft was in-flight. There were a miscellany of chirps and blips and sproings and the occasional dong that indicated that attention was needed in one place or another, and of course there was the cloister bell – a deep chime of deeply ominous portent that signified dire events and dangers.

Right now, along with the sound of bring in flight, a series of little pings indicated that the TARDIS was following the wake of another ship through the time vortex – by its own choice, rather than any sort of decision from its occupants.

Yes, even if she was still less than adroit at actually piloting the TARDIS, Clara was becoming more and more adept at knowing how things worked on the time traveling blue police box. This was probably a good thing, considering that the other occupant of the craft seemed almost completely ignorant about it – and willfully disinterested in remembering how to fly the thing.

The TARDIS itself – or herself, Clara corrected inwardly – seemed (for lack of a better word) petulant about the whole thing. The interior lights were never as bright as they used to be, the controls sticky and the thingamy that went up and down in the middle of the console was sluggish and almost apathetic. What was it called again? Clara turned to the Doctor, who was leaning against a railing giving his attention to the thick book in his hands rather than where the TARDIS was going.  
"Doctor, the thingamy that goes up and down in the middle of the console – what's its name?" she asked. She'd remember eventually, but over the past few weeks Clara had been trying to draw the Doctor's interest into his home and traveling craft, only to be repeatedly shot down with almost aggressive apathy.

"I don't know, just call it the up and down thingamy." The Doctor muttered, eyes not looking up from his book. Clara, in an attempt to remain even tempered with her Time Lord traveling companion, refrained from throwing something at the man. Instead, she flipped a toggle on the console that made the TARDIS shudder in complaint. This drew the Doctor's eyes to her momentarily.

"You need more practice." he said to her. "It's like you're piloting a whale."

The TARDIS gave a secondary shudder – this time all on her own, objecting to the comparison. Clara seized upon the Doctor's distraction from his book to approach him.

"You could just remember how to fly her yourself." she reminded him. "Instead of standing about being cranky and reading...what's this one?" Clara turned the book in the Doctor's thin hands and looked at the title. "A History of the Egg. Volume seven."

"I'm busy." the Doctor said shortly. "Anyway, you're passing close to competence, so why should I?"

"Because! You're the Doctor! It's your TARDIS! The Doctor and the TARDIS! It's like peaches and cream or peanut butter and bananas or...or..." Clara groped around for another comparison.

"Fish fingers and custard?" suggested the Doctor. His thin face twisted into a disdainful sneer.

That was an expression he'd worn more than once over the past weeks since his regeneration. It was one that would have been very out of place on his old face – the one with the wide chin, floppy hair and eyes that sparkled with childlike mischief – but seemed quite comfortable and at home on this new one.

Clara was quite aware of certain quirks about Time Lord physiology such as when one body had taken sufficient damage or, well, died, it would renew itself in what was called a regeneration – every cell, every atom of the Doctor's body would refresh and renew itself. The results, for the most part, ended up having a completely different look and – as she was continuously being reminded by the Doctor's abrasive attitude – a wholly different set of personality traits.

The Doctor – _her_ Doctor, the one that she'd dived head first into pure and raw time energy to save – had been fun and funny, gentle and playful. Certainly, he had a righteous tantrum every so often, and made decisions that seemed morally questionable to her at the time, but the man himself was kinder. Nicer. This new face, this new body and new Doctor was, well, more than a little abrasive.

Still, he hadn't told her to leave. That was good, right? The Doctor hadn't punted her out of the TARDIS to go swanning off by himself or, worse, with someone else. He'd allowed her to stay. True, he hadn't actually _asked_ her to stay either – the topic had very carefully been avoided, and Clara was more than a little worried about what the response would have been.

Clara noticed that the Doctor's eyes – cold eyes, hard and angry – were still on her. She took a breath and tried again.

"Look, I get it – you died and are in a new body." Clara began, "That ought to tick off practically anyone. But you're alive, Doctor! Embrace life! Show an interest in more than useless books! You have a whole library of Gallifreyan-"

"Embrace life!" the Doctor exploded, his voice a roar in her ears. The book hit the floor as he advanced upon Clara, causing her the need to step back several paces. Anger boiled from the Time Lord. "Spare me your inept human psychology! I've been _embracing life_ for hundreds of years!"

"Well then you should be pretty good at it then!" Clara shot back, frustrated.

The Doctor, realizing that his hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists, shook his head sharply and let out a heavy breath. The pair eyed each other for a few long moments before the Doctor spoke again.

"Do you know how old I am?" he asked, voice low and serious.

"Sure. Well, approximately. Around fifteen hundred or so." She'd experienced every one of them, when she had been lost and falling through time. Sometimes she even remembered bits of it. Blurred, dark memories that weren't hers.

"Close enough." The Doctor hissed, "And do you know what that is, to me? To a Time Lord?"

"A jolly good run?" Clara asked weakly.

"You know nothing." The Doctor snarled. "Nothing."

"Then enlighten me!"

"My species is a secretive one." The Doctor said to her, still not breaking eye contact. "We hoard secrets like dragons keep gold. When asked a question about ourselves, we deflect or ignore it or often downright lie about it. But you...you..."

At this point, the Doctor looked incredibly frail, still angry but so...lost at the same time.

"You, Clara Osgood-"

"Oswald." Clara corrected absently, "or Oswin, if you want to - "

"You, Clara, ferret out my secrets one by one. You poke and pry and find your way into my library no matter how many times I hide it." The Doctor's voice was rising again, eyes starting to bulge. "You, in collusion with this...TARDIS, are going where _you are not wanted._"

"Doctor, if you don't want me to - " Clara began, but was cut off again.

"I've said that middle age for a Time Lord is in the seven hundreds. I think." The Doctor paused. "I lied. I do that."

"Well, fine." Clara shrugged. She was used to it, and generally found out the truth through midnight wanderings with the help of the TARDIS and her ever-shifting interior.

"A Time Lord has thirteen lives. Twelve regenerations. And I lost them all."

"Right, but the Time Lords gave you a whole new set. You're in factory condition again!" Except, Clara thought, for the attitude. That needed a warranty return.

"You're missing the point, " The Doctor growled. "But I'm not surprised. So limited. So small."

"So rude. So bitter." Clara shot back. "Not trying to keep friends this time round?"

"By the time one of my kind reaches their last regeneration, they can have lived thousands and thousands of years. We age differently – each body has its own rate of decay – and if it wasn't for the Time War, you would see Time Lords passing naturally into their fifth or sixth millennia before they run out of lives."

"Then, of course, if they had earned in some way the benevolence of the Council, they could be given a whole new set of regenerations, and continue on essentially as long as they wanted or needed to."

"Like they did to you." Clara repeated. "They gave you new regenerations."

"So early. So bloody early." The Doctor seemed torn between anger and regret. "I've thrown away so many lives, so many times. Over and over again, injured to the point of death, everything jumbled back in together and spat out anew to face the universe. Want to know why?"

"Because you're a good man." Clara offered. "Mostly."

"Because of THAT!" The Doctor pointed a long, thin finger at the TARDIS console. "So many lives, so many futures wasted because THAT took me into danger, time and time again. And do you know what that makes me, Clara Oswald?"

"What?" Clara asked, her mind thinking furiously. He blamed the TARDIS?

"I'm not a Time Lord." he said simply, shaking his head. "Time is the lord of me. _And it keeps running out._"

"Doctor, I - " Clara wanted to argue, but her gaze was still following the Doctor's finger and she noticed that the time rotor (_Yes! That's what it was called!_ Clara thought.) had stopped moving. The lights still shone their wan illumination over the console room, but all movement from the time rotor had ceased. The familiar wheeze of travel had also vanished, during the argument. They had stopped.

"We've stopped." Clara said, unnecessarily.

"Yes? And?" The Doctor scowled again. "We were having a talk. That is, I was talking and you were supposed to be listening."

"But we've stopped, Doctor. In space."

"How do you know we're still in space?"

"No ca-chunk." Clara said, waving a hand vaguely. Even if she hadn't been paying attention at the time, she knew the TARDIS sounds. Arrival somewhere solid ended with a ca-chunk sound.

"No...ca-chunk." The Doctor echoed, shaking his head. "A technical term I obviously don't want to become familiar with."

Clara ignored the remark, and approached the TARDIS console. She peered at the small viewscreen and frowned in confusion.

"Unhelpful." She muttered, addressing the console itself. "One day you have to stop displaying things in Gallifreyan, sweetie. Or _someone _could get around to teaching me how to read it."

"Never in a million years." snapped the Doctor.

"Then get your skinny bum over here and tell me what this says." she poked at the screen. "You may not want to remember how to fly her, but you can still be of use."

The Doctor bristled at this comment, but strode forward. Muttering under his breath about being more use than a girl in a horrible cardigan, he ran his eyes over the viewscreen. Then he read it a second time.

"Well?" Clara asked.

"It's malfunctioning." the Doctor said shortly.

"Why do you say that?"

"Why are we here?" The Doctor countered.

"Well, the TARDIS was following another ship through the time vortex." Clara explained. "I'm not sure why."

"What kind of ship?"

"If you'd been paying attention..."

"Clara, what kind of ship?"

"I don't know. Just a ship! What am I, a volume of Jane's Time Machines?"

"Your ignorance is dangerous!" snapped the Doctor.

"Too bad, we're here now. So why is the screen telling you impossible things?"

"Because it says we're parked just outside a black hole. And that's impossible."

"You've done it before." Clara countered. "That one time, with Rose and the thing that said it was the devil."

"Completely different circumstances." the Doctor muttered. "And I didn't tell you about that. Been prying again?"

"Always." Clara shrugged. "It beats being snarked at by a skinny silver haired streak of woe."

The Doctor looked at her for a long moment, and then surprisingly nodded – just once, but an acknowledgment nonetheless.

"I _am_ angry." he told her. "But not with you. And I'd apologise, but I don't do that sort of thing anymore."

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

"Fine. So, impossible?"

"Yes. We're in space. Above a massive gravitational pull, but with no mass to cause it. It should be a black hole but..." the Doctor tapped the screen lightly, "It's not pulling things in."

"Is it spitting them out?" Clara asked. "Because that would be a neat trick."

"No. It's just sitting there. A hole in space with a massive amount of gravity to it – if something was to enter, it had better be pretty bloody sure it wanted to go because it isn't getting out in a hurry! It's a mystery."

"And you like mysteries." Clara smiled. The Doctor looked at her sharply.

"Don't you start. Not now, not today. The TARDIS has dragged us here for whatever reason, and that's a good enough reason to _leave_."

"Oh come on, Doctor!" Clara exclaimed, "This is what you do! You investigate mysterious things, save lives, pretty much be a marvelous bloke and all that."

"And I die." The Doctor shook his head. "Thanks you, but I can leave this mystery alone."

_Attention! Attention please!_

The voice cut through the air, vibrating around the pair. Both the Doctor and Clara looked around for the speaker, but none was to be seen. The communication system crackled to life.

_This message is being broadcast to all space/time capsules in range. Gallifreyan space/time capsule registration 6771-Aleph requesting immediate assistance. Lives in danger. Message repeats. Attention! Attention Please! This message..._

The Doctor and Clara exchanged another look as the short message continued in a slightly higher volume. It seemed to be the day for meaningful looks.

"Immediate assistance requested. Lives in danger." Clara raised an eyebrow. "Can't argue with that."

"Gallifreyan capsule." the Doctor murmured,brow furrowed. "Gallifreyan _capsule_? _Gallifreyan_ capsule?"

"Where's the message coming from and – more importantly – can we turn it off?" Clara asked, wincing. The voice was growing louder. It was mercifully cut off on its own – evidently the TARDIS had regained control of her communication system.

"Where do you think?" the Doctor sighed. "Down."

"In the black hole?"

"In whatever it really is."

"Then we need to go in. Lives in danger, remember? Chop chop!" Clara clapped her hands in a businesslike manner. The Doctor vacillated, obviously not wanting to get involved but feeling the pull of not only the mystery but also of the message itself.

"You said we were following a mystery ship. It could be going in to save whomever is down in the...the...gravity well."

"Or it could be the one sending the message."

"There are no Gallifreyan ships flying about space/time willy-nilly! _You_ should know that."

"So they might be rescuing someone you know. A Time Lord."

With a baleful glare at the TARDIS console and a short, explosive exhalation, the Doctor nodded to Clara.

"Apparently so." he said coldly. "Take us in."


	2. Chapter 2 - Shipwrecks

Chapter Two - Shipwrecks

"Have you eaten breakfast yet?"

Clara and the Doctor had stepped out of the TARDIS unsteadily – the ride down the gravity well had proved to be a little rougher than usual and left the pair somewhat shaken and just a little stirred – and had spent several long minutes gazing around at the scenery, such as it was.

"No, not yet. Why?" Clara asked absently, taking in a sweeping view of a large plain that was pock-marked and blemished with gigantic mounds of twisted metal and scrap.

"Because that's three so far and I've a feeling that we're only just getting started." The Doctor was scowling again – Clara had a sinking feeling that it was a permanent feature on his new face.

"Three what? And what's all this...?" Clara gestured around her at the massive debris piles. Some looked to be quite ancient, whilst others more recent. She was surprised to find that she actually recognized parts here and there – one wreckage pile showed the tell-tale signs of being a Sontaran warship. Another was noticeably Judoon in design. "They're ships!"

And they were. Stretching to the horizon was wreckage after wreckage, crashed and derelict spacecraft of a thousand species or more. The Doctor nodded slowly.

"What do you see, Clara Oswald?" He asked, not looking at her. "Tell me exactly what you see."

"Why? Are you seeing something different? Are you seeing a forest or a city or a field of buttercups or something?" Clara narrowed her eyes, squinting. "Is this an illusion?"

"No." The Doctor sighed. "Humour me."

"That'd be a first in a while." Clara fired off, but took another, longer look at the endless plain of shipwrecks.

"It's ships, Doctor. Hundreds, thousands even. Some are old, some are newer. Some are completely smashed to uselessness, and others are relatively intact. I think they didn't manage to stop when they came to the bottom of the tunnel. Well, they _stopped_, obviously, but not in a good way."

"Yes, Clara. You see what's right in front of you. Good girl." The Doctor didn't sound like he was praising her. Was that disappointment she heard in his tone? The Doctor began to point out wrecks and name them for her. "Judoon. Sontaren. Atraxi. That one's Pooshen, if you can believe it. Over there is a Nestene pod, right next to the Silurian sleeper ship. See there, that's the butterfly-wing design of a Aplan flitter – and they've been dead and gone for thousands of years. Ah, there's a cyber-ship. Several, actually."

Clara shivered, remembering her encounter with auto-upgrading Cybermen that ended with the defense of a not-so-comical castle at a futuristic amusement park. The Cybermen were implacable, emotionless creatures that had almost killed her – and had almost taken over the mind of the Doctor. Clara shook her head to clear the memory, realizing that the Doctor was still talking.

"Dalek, right there." he said, pointing again. The expression on his face was hard. "That one's new and, as stated, completely impossible."

"Daleks? Is that what we were chasing then?" Clara liked it when the Doctor ran his mouth – it was a habit he'd had previously, but this new body didn't seem to be as manic and verbose. Still, when he _did_ speak at length, the comfortable cadence of a schoolteacher came out.

"You tell me." the Doctor shot back. "I wasn't chasing anything, remember?"

"I'm sorry, I really didn't-"

"Know." The Doctor finished for her. "Yes, you said. The crash is new, Clara. Hours old, at most. But what _don't_ you see?"

"Survivors?" Clara was getting tired of guessing.

"Oh, there'll be survivors." The Doctor's tone turned bitter and cold. "There are always Dalek survivors. No. Look again."

"You could just _tell_ me." Clara protested, but the Doctor pursed his lips together and was silent. Clara sighed, and tried to think. "What I don't see...what I _don't_ see..."

_It happened just hours ago_, she thought to herself, _a large craft impacting against a solid surface. Planet? Asteroid? Probably not important, anyway, since we can breathe. There's wreckage and junk and...oh._

"Just wreckage." Clara said aloud. "Even a small aircraft on Earth causes a fire, explosions and all that. Dangerous fuel spills, things go ka-boom. That's what's missing here – no ka-boom."

"Exactly, " nodded the Doctor. "No fire, no lethal radiation or toxic chemical spills. The air smells like..." he took a sniff, "Well, it smells like dust. It's like all the energy has been taken away from the ships on impact, so they caused a minimum of fuss."

"Do you think that means the energy of any surviving Daleks would be taken away too?" Clara asked hopefully. She'd been a Dalek once – well, sort of, in an injecting-her-consciousness-into-a-future-timestream way but she didn't care to repeat the process.

"Do our fortunes ever lean in that direction?" The Doctor's reply was borderline sardonic. Clara looked at him and shrugged.

"Well, come on then, " she said lightly, "We just need to watch our step."

Together, the pair walked through the field of wreckage. Clara noted that though the Doctor was quite fine with tracking the distress signal through the electronic Swiss army knife known as the sonic screwdriver, he was extremely reluctant to take the lead and stayed a step or two behind Clara. She tried to tell herself that it didn't matter, that he was with her and that it would be okay – tried and failed. This wasn't the way the Doctor was supposed to be!

"You know what else is missing?" the Doctor said quietly, his eyes constantly on the move. He didn't wait for Clara to answer before continuing. "Sound. Movement. Life. This is a dead place."

"Cheery today, aren't you?" Clara tried to make light of it, much to the Doctor's ire, but she felt the same sense of silent dread – if they were following a distress signal in a wreckage field thousands of years old, _would_ there be a survivor after all?

High above, the sky was blank and featureless but for the tiny speck of light that was the top of the gravity well, so very far away. Everything was illuminated with a pale grey light that seemed to come from nowhere in particular. It cast the wreckage fields and the dusty earth beneath their feet in a surreal, monochromatic way.

"That way." The Doctor pointed with the sonic, its high pitched warble a comforting sound in the otherwise silent world. Clara and the Doctor walked slowly, eyes and ears alert for Daleks – or any other species of creature, for that matter – but encountered nothing.

Clara let her fingers run along the pitted metallic surface of a ship that she couldn't identify as they walked past – its entire front end was gone and only a partially collapsed shell of the bulbous rear remained. The ship looked a little familiar to her for some reason, and she asked the Doctor what it was.

"It's an Earth ship." the Doctor told her matter-of-factly. "From the year twenty four seventy or so. There was a great nostalgia for the classics at that time, and they modeled it off an old television show. The main engine was a trace compression block drive – horribly inefficient, but they were going for fantasy rather than efficiency. The wings – yes, it had wings, of a sort – each had a VTOL engine for atmospheric maneuvering. Humans do the oddest things sometimes."

"So there could be humans here?" Clara asked, her pulse quickening. "Future humans?"

"Perhaps, perhaps not." The Doctor shrugged. "This ship is at least two hundred years old."

"Oh." Clara thought for a moment, and looked up into the sky at the pinpoint of light that was the rest of the universe, far above and up the well. "Are we going to be stuck down here?"

"Curious time to ask _that_ question." the Doctor snorted. "After we're already at the bottom. We're getting closer to the signal's source, by the way."

Indeed, the sonic screwdriver's pitch was increasing to indicate a stronger signal. Clara wasn't quite sure how the device worked, so she was glad that the Doctor didn't seem to have the same aversion to it as he had to the TARDIS controls. He'd remembered how to use the sonic screwdriver almost immediately.

Together, they followed the signal-tracing sonic that led the pair to a tall and very settled in looking mountain of wreckage. In it were the junked and twisted parts of at least a dozen vessels stacked up in such a way that made it suspiciously conspicuous that there was something else underneath, rather than disguise it. Recessed into the mountain of junk was an oval-shaped silver-grey doorway of dull metal that tweaked at Clara's memories.

"Does that look familiar to you?" she asked the Doctor, who shrugged. His face was carefully expressionless. "And the signal we heard – the distress call – is coming from in there?"

A nod. Clara sighed.

"Can your sonic screwdriver open it?"

"Probably. Or you could try knocking."

"_You_ could knock." Clara suggested. The Doctor's passivity was almost aggressive in nature, and it was beginning to get to her, but she raised a hand and tapped against the hard, cold metal. It stung her knuckles to rap against the door, but she repeated the gesture after a few moments. Nothing happened.

"Well, that's good. We've discovered that the door wasn't booby trapped or have a disintegration field to discourage guests." The Doctor observed. Clara turned to look at him in horror.

"You made me knock, when-"

"No, I _suggested_ you knock. You did it yourself, and learned something important in the process."

_I certainly have._ Clara thought to herself. _For a man with two hearts, you can be so bloody heartless sometimes._

"So you would have let me die?" she asked, turning on him. The Doctor's face was blank. "After everything?"

"I would have regretted your absence." The Doctor replied carefully. "But after all, I'm the Time Lord. I'm the important one here."

"The _important_ one? Let me tell you something, Doctor, not too long ago you would have never dismissed _anyone_ as being less important than you!"

"I know it's difficult for you to accept, but it would serve you well to remember that _I'm not the same man you buddied up with_." the Doctor told her. "_We_ are not friends."

"Only because you've been acting like a petulant-"

"Excuse me, is this a private argument, or can anyone join in?" a new voice cut in gently. The Doctor and Clara spun to see an elderly man standing off to one side with a little smile on his face.

"I only ask because it's terribly urgent that we get inside my capsule before the Daleks realize that I've stolen their energy booster and come after me." The old man held up a small electronic widget in his thick hand. "Naughty of me, I suppose, but my last one buggered up and I can't get my docilator to work without it."

"Um. Hello!" Clara said to the man, smiling as appealingly as possible. "Sorry about that. I'm Clara, and this is the Doctor."

"The Doctor, hmm?" the old man squinted at the Doctor, who stared back. A shiver of awareness passed between them as each instantly knew what the other was. The old man's heavy-jowled face lit up in delight.

"In! Come in, come in! Finally, you've come! Enter, enter! If not to avoid the Daleks, then for tea! Great drink, tea. I didn't even know about it until a few hundred years ago – gosh, it's like drinking heaven in a cup." the old man pushed past both Clara and the Doctor, and pressed his hand against the doorway, which opened with a soft hiss. "I know it looks a bit small, but I'm sure we can find room for you both."

The Doctor was busy scanning the wreckage field, cautious and wary of any movement. He _knew_ that there would be Daleks. They were a hardy lot. And then he would have to face them. And then he might...

Clara took the Doctor by the elbow, and practically pulled him through the now open door. The old man was still talking, his cracked voice alive with delight. Eventually, recognizing that his guests were completely silent, he turned around and looked at them with a grin.

"I know it's not much, but it's home." he said modestly.

The trio stood in a large cathedral-domed room decorated with old hardwood panels and stained glass roundels. An impossibly large chandelier hung overhead, illuminating a scuffed but lavish wooden floor, comfortably plush chairs and lounges, and in the centre of the cavernous room was a beautiful pipe organ that had a vast array of keys, knobs and dials.

"That's four." the Doctor said. "Two more and I'm calling you Alice."

The Doctor and Clara exchanged a look. This place was definitely bigger on the inside.


	3. Chapter 3 - Tea Service

Chapter Three

Tea Service

"You're a Time Lord." the Doctor stated flatly. It wasn't a question. The old man nodded happily.

"As are you, lad." he said cheerily. "And I'm frightfully glad to see you. Someone finally got around to sending you to get me, eh? Who was it – the High Magister? Head of Temporal Affairs? Or old Rassilon – never met him, of course, but I did get a copy of his book from the Arcadia library once. Fascinating stuff. Did he send you?"

"We followed another ship – the Daleks, it seems. They were tracing your signal down the well." the Doctor told him. "We didn't know you were down here until we heard the signal ourselves. It wasn't particularly strong."

"Hmmm. That might be why it's taken a while for you to get here, I suppose. I really wish so many others hadn't come down though, they've been frightfully inconvenient." The old man scratched his head and turned to face Clara suddenly. "Remind me later, my dear, I really do need to return that book – the overdue fees are likely to be quite phenomenal at this point. Now, to business..."

Clara half listened to the overly-chatty gentleman as she approached the pipe organ. It was a beautiful piece of work, and even if her piano skills were as bad as her baking (though she'd never give up on that souffle recipe!) her fingers ached to touch the keys. It was as if they called to her enticingly.

"The power of my capsule is insufficient to break free of the gravity well. I'm not entirely sure why I thought it was a good idea to come down here to begin with. Seems to have slipped my mind. Now, the power of two capsules – I assume you have one, yes? A newer, flashier model than this old thing, I'm sure."

"This is a TARDIS!" Clara exclaimed suddenly. The Doctor rolled his eyes as if to say _Of course it is._ The old man looked at her quizzically.

"Sorry, a what?"

"A TARDIS. A ship that moves through space and time." she said. "It stands for-"

"Oh, is that what you call them these days? I'm afraid I'm a touch out of date. This is nothing grand like the new Type Twenties! Whooosh, those are classy! My dear capsule is just an old Type Seventeen Gallifreyan Transport Capsule."

"Type Seventeen!" The Doctor exclaimed. "That's impossible! They were all decommissioned, dismantled and destroyed!"

"Oh, a shame. She has character, I'll give you that." The old man said easily. "Not as intuitive as newer models. What do you have?"

Clara gave in to the temptation, and lightly caressed the pipe organ's incredible array of keys. There was no sound or movement, but it was as if her eyes had been covered and now opened to see things clearly. She hadn't noticed at first, but the keyboard wrapped all the way around in a hexagonal shape, surrounding the collection of pipes in a very familiar way. It was, she recognized, a TARDIS control console. Completely different layout to the Doctor's, of course. The cathedral theme was interesting.

Meanwhile, the Doctor was getting irritable. Clara could tell, because he was breathing. Not breathing heavily, just breathing. The Doctor was always irritable these days.

"Who are you?" The Doctor snapped, "What are you doing down here in this relic and, lastly, how can I get you to stop babbling long enough to give me answers?"

The old man deflated a little, a hurt look on his face.

"I'm sorry." he said quietly. "It's just been so long since I've talked to anyone. Really talked, that is."

"How long?" the Doctor pressed. The old man thought about it for a long moment.

"I don't know." he shrugged. "I stopped counting some time ago. Depressing, you know. Now, there's a lot I need to tell you and a delightfully complicated set of equations and the like that we need to go over – once I know the power output levels of your, er, 'TARDIS' we can work out the energy needed to punch up through the well. Then it will be a short hop across the universe to Gallifrey, and we can all bask under her glorious suns! Before that though, there was something...something..."

"You were going to tell me who you are." The Doctor reminded him sharply. The old man shook his head.

"No, something important." He scratched at his head with the hand that held the Dalek energy booster. "Something vitally important to the very survival of our...yes! Tea! That's it!"

The old man ambled off toward an arched hall. The Doctor looked at Clara and shook his head.

"The man is an idiot." he told her. Clara wondered if that was a tone of regret in his voice. After all, Time Lords weren't exactly running all over space and time anymore. Perhaps the Doctor had hoped to connect with an equal. Still, he shouldn't be rude about it.

"He's old." she told him. "As you were, in the town of Christmas. On Trenzalore, remember? You went a bit batty there too, you know."

The Doctor was going to retort, but was interrupted by the old man, who sang out to them.

"Yoo-hoo!" he cried, "Come on then! Lots to do!"

With a shrug, the Doctor gave a slightly sarcastic sweeping gesture. Clara shook her head in exasperation, and followed after the old man. The Doctor brought up the rear, his cold eyes filled with calculation.

The Doctor and Clara found themselves in a room much more comfortable in its aesthetic. The ceiling was lower, the walls covered with pictures and a thick plush carpet spread across the floor. There were several chairs scattered about, several small plants in ornate pots placed in a haphazard pattern about the place, and off to one side an easel and a jumbled stack of paints. The room gave off an air of relaxation – though it was likely equal in actual size to the cathedral-themed control room. The old man turned to his guests, a sheepish expression on his face.

"Forgive me, this is not the tea room. I'd say I got lost, but that would be a terrible fib. I don't often get guests, and especially not guests that want to kill, exterminate or upgrade me, so I'm afraid bringing you in here was a touch of pride, really."

"So you lured us in here with amiability, and now you plan to steal my TARDIS. It's a trap?" The Doctor asked sharply. Clara thought it to be one of the sillier things she'd heard him say since his regeneration. The man wasn't stupid, but sometimes...

"A trap? Goodness, no. This is my painting room, lad!" the old man laughed. "I come here and mess about with paints and canvas when I'm feeling a little homesick."

The Doctor looked around at the thousands of paintings on the walls. Each of them depicted landscapes – scenery of a world with twin suns and amber skies. He recognized it, of course. How could he not?

"Are they all Gallifrey?" Clara asked gently. How long had he been here, alone and lost in painting a home he was so far away from? A home that he could never get back to?

"Yes, yes. My pride, of course. It doesn't seem to matter how many times I regenerate, I always manage to hang on to my skill at painting – if I may be less than modest – and as the years wear on I find it hard to remember exactly what the old home world looks like. This place is a memory exercise, really."

"They're not really that good." The Doctor pointed out. "Practically amateur, some of them."

Clara shot him a look – the paintings were perfectly lovely to her, and there _was_ skill behind them. She wasn't sure why the Doctor was being rude, but he hadn't really needed a reason lately anyway. He just _was_.

"So you call yourself the Doctor." the old man said, looking at the Doctor mildly. "Oh well. I was hoping for someone, well, connected, but you'll do. You'll do just fine."

"Connected to who?"

"To Gallifrey, of course. Someone important. Someone with resources to call upon – getting out of here isn't going to be a walk in the park. It would be good if you kept close ties to the home world – call out a few more of us, that sort of thing."

"What makes you think I haven't? That I can't?"

"You've given yourself a title, lad, just as I have." the old man looked and smiled at Clara. "Some of us do that, you know. But when we do, we're not the sort to hang about! Oh no, it's off to see the universe and don't spare the running shoes! But how was Gallifrey, the last time you saw it?" he turned back to the Doctor, whose face was once again blank. "I've been missing home so very badly, you know. It's why I paint. To remember. Did I say that already? I feel as if I might possibly have done so."

"It's okay." Clara stepped forward and patted the old man on the shoulder. "Um. There's something you should know about Gallifrey..."

"You're not Gallifreyan, no." the old man tilted his head as he examined her. "You absolutely _reek_ of the time vortex though. You're one of the Earthers, aren't you? Human?"

"Yes." Clara nodded. The old man grinned suddenly.

"I've been there, you know. To Earth. Long ago and lifetimes past. Healthy bearded fellows who enjoyed a good rumble. And a good pillage, too, but that was all in good fun I'm sure."

"You mean the Vikings? The Norsemen?" Clara asked.

"Tell me dear, is Gallifrey still beautiful? I imagine it's changed so much since I saw it last."

Clara felt as if she might get mental whiplash, the way the old man skipped back and forth over topics. She had been getting used to it with the Doctor – the _other_ Doctor – but the way the old man spoke was almost broken into bite-sized pieces of memory.

"Listen, Gallifrey is-"

"Still beautiful." The Doctor cut in, stepping forward and putting a warning hand on Clara's shoulder. "Her suns still shine and her glorious cities gleam and rise high to the heavens."

"Ah." the old man's eyes grew watery. "Good, good. And now you're here, and I can go home again. Home. Is it still home, after so long away? Tea. Come on, to the tea room. I designed a room just for having tea in, you know. Terribly decadent of me, of course, but I am a Time Lord after all and we're known for it. That and brilliant arrogance."

"That hasn't changed either." Clara muttered, shooting a look at the Doctor, as the old man walked on to the next door. "You have to tell him!"

"Tell him what?" the Doctor asked.

"About Gallifrey!"

"That would not be a good idea. In fact, that would be so much a terrible idea that I wouldn't even consider it."

"Why not?" Clara insisted. "He has a right to know that Gallifrey is trapped in stasis somewhere – in a painting or something." She wasn't _entirely_ clear on how all that worked, but she knew that Gallifrey was no longer part of the regular universe.

"Look, you know when you were a child and you saw something really appealing at the shops that you desperately wanted, and your mother told you that you couldn't have it?"

"Um..."

"And you were upset, and you asked and asked and asked and she refused continually, and that night you thought about it and dreamed about it and every day you imagined having this thing, this whatever, until you couldn't possibly imagine life being properly fun without it."

The Doctor's eyes met hers, as Clara found herself nodding. All kids went through that sort of thing at least once.

"And then, " he continued, "After weeks and weeks of wanting and needing and imagining, Christmas comes and you open up your gifts and there it is, that thing you wanted. And you're _so happy._"

"Yes..."

"And then, after you muck about with it for an hour or two, you realize that it wasn't _exactly_ what you thought you wanted. Maybe it wasn't _quite_ as much fun as you thought it would be. You don't feel as if your life is complete with it, it's just another thing. And you're disappointed. Resentful even. You discard it, and turn to something else instead. All that wanting, all that needing and dreaming was building up a huge ball of excitement inside, and when it deflated you felt empty and a little sad."

"You must have had some crap Christmases." Clara shook her head. "And that's got to be the most rubbish analogy I've ever heard. It doesn't even apply!"

"Clara, the truth would be terrible to him. The fellow is old – very old, even by my standards. He's referencing people long dust and uses archaic expressions that haven't been used for thousands and thousands of years. I don't know how long he's been down here, pining for Gallifrey, all alone and waiting for rescue."

"Oh, not _waiting_ for rescue, although there's been a fair bit of quiet time." The old man was at their side again, tugging on sleeves encouragingly. "Come to the tea room and let's chat. I've been trying to escape on my own too, you know!"

"But the pull is too strong?" The Doctor asked. Science was a safer topic than Gallifrey.

"So far, yes. I've done some wonderfully brilliant things to increase power and thrust, but I'm still not quite there yet. But now you're here and everything is going to be alright." The old man led the pair into yet another room – this one small, almost cramped. The chairs were faded and battered, but enticingly comfortable. Small tables held a variety of odd knick-knacks and several bookshelves lined the walls. The books were old and well used, and light seemed to stream into the room from a window with open curtains that turned out to be a viewscreen tuned to a strange alien landscape.

"Sit, sit, I'll call for tea and we'll talk of many things!" the old man declared, pulling a small golden-threaded cord that hung from the ceiling. In the distance, a gong sounded. With a nod of satisfaction, the old man carelessly tossed his purloined energy booster onto a side table where it joined dozens of other random objects and settled himself into one of the chairs with a long sigh.

"Ahh. Good, good. I don't suppose you would indulge an old man and stop scowling like a thundercloud would you, lad?" the old man asked the Doctor. "It's terribly off-putting."

"I'm not here for tea, and my facial expressions are my own." The Doctor growled. "I'm here to find out who you are, what you're doing, and then leave. If you're very nice – and very quiet – I might even take you with me when I go."

"Testy young fellow, isn't he?" The old man said to Clara easily, ignoring the Doctor's outburst. Clara grinned. The old gentleman was obviously of a more advanced age than the Doctor, but it amused her a little that he called the tall, thin, grey-haired Doctor 'young fellow'. The Doctor's current body looked to be in its early fifties.

What was even more amusing was the huff of exasperation the Doctor let out as he allowed himself to sit in one of the comfortable chairs. His expression was stormy.

"Young fellow, you would have an easier time of things if you didn't take everything so seriously." The old man advised the Doctor. "Relax. Have a little fun."

"I used to." The Doctor told him shortly. "I got over it. Now, if you would be so kind as to finally answer my questions, I'd greatly appreciate it. Who are you, exactly?"

Clara was about to politely upbraid the Doctor for his lack of interpersonal skills, but was distracted by a sound in the distance. From beyond the tea room, she heard a soft hiss-clack, hiss-clack approaching. It sounded familiar but she couldn't quite place it. Familiar in a bad way though.

"I'm a Gallifreyan, of course." the old man was telling the Doctor. "Time Lord, though not much lording going on down here, I'm afraid. Lots of research and scavenging and rebuilding – you saw all the ships out there, of course?"

"Yes, but who _are_ you?"

_Hiss-clack. Hiss-clack. Hiss-clack._

Clara squirmed in her comfortable chair. The sound made her nervous, and it was getting closer. It was a sound she'd heard recently, she was sure. It was..._oh, no!_

The door to the tea room opened without sound, and standing in the doorway was the tall, bulky silver figure of a Cyberman. With two slow steps, the creature entered the room. _Hiss-clack, hiss-clack_ went its footsteps.

The Doctor was on his feet immediately with a swirl of his navy jacket, sonic screwdriver in his hands pointed at the Cyberman. Without breaking visual contact with the creature, he shouted.

"Trap! Clara, run!"

The old man also rose, somewhat slower than the Doctor had. He shook his head and began a slow shuffling walk toward the Cyberman, who made no attempt to move. The Doctor's sonic screwdriver sang its high pitched tones, but did nothing overt.

"Don't panic yourself, friends." The old man chuckled, patting the Cyberman on one silver arm. "Gerald here is completely harmless. See?"

With a couple of taps and a tug, the old man opened up the Cyberman's faceplate. There was nothing inside but knots of wire and circuitry. The Doctor, however, didn't lower his screwdriver even as the old man replaced the faceplate and took a large tray from the Cyberman's hands. On it was a pot, several cups and a plate of biscuits.

"I had to remove the organic components, of course. Terrible thing, that. The smell was awful, and it did insist upon trying to upgrade me. But now Gerald is one of my handy helpers around here." He put the tea tray on a side table and smiled at his guests. "I've always been a bit clever."

"It's still armed." The Doctor noted, his sonic screwdriver picking up weapon signatures on the wrists of the Cyberman. "Still dangerous."

"Yes, of course." the old man replied mildly. "New arrivals don't always act nicely. Do you take sugar?"

"So you kill new arrivals then?" the Doctor asked, his voice hard. Clara found herself rising from her chair finally, and approaching the Doctor. She put one hand onto the Doctor's, and gently lowered it from pointing at the Cyberman. His screwdriver fell silent.

"Mostly they die in the crash." The reply was sad. "The most resilient are the Cybermen, and the Daleks of course. I have to take steps with them. Daleks." The old man thought for a moment and turned to the Cyberman who stood patiently, waiting. "Which reminds me, I need more milk. Thank you, Gerald. That will be all for now."

The Cyberman gave a very slight bow, left the room and closed the door behind it politely. The hiss-clack of its footsteps receded into the distance. The Doctor was at a loss, Clara could see that, so she led him to sit back down. He didn't say anything, but didn't put away his screwdriver either.

"Come come, do tell me how you take your tea. It is rather delicious, even if it _is_ just a reconstitution from my travel capsule's food creation system."

"You mentioned titles earlier," Clara said softly, taking a cup of tea from the old man as it was offered. He nodded at her appreciatively. "What's yours? Calling you 'Old Man' is a bit rude."

"Well my dear, I suppose you should know since we'll all be working together to get up, up and away." The old man smiled. "I'm known – or at least, long ago I _was_ known – as the Fool. That's a fascinating little device you have there, Doctor. Sonic based, if I haven't missed my mark. Biscuit, anyone? They've got little chips of chocolate in them. Amazing, really."


	4. Chapter 4 - Fools and Feelings

Chapter Four

Fools and Feelings

"The Fool? I've never heard of you." The Doctor said, his face almost bored. Clara thought she heard something in his voice that spoke of deeper interest. The Fool nodded and smiled vaguely, not particularly off-put by the Doctor's dismissive statement.

"I'd be surprised, to be honest. What are you - twelve hundred or so, lad?"

"Fifteen hundred." The Doctor scowled. "Ish."

"You can tell that by looking at him?" Clara asked.

"It's a thing." The Fool shrugged, and turned back to the Doctor. "I've been down here long before you were a tinkle in your father's time stream, lad. Far, far longer. Frightfully depressing, really. Best not to think about it." He shook his head, as if to clear it.

"There would have been some sort of record, though." The Doctor frowned. "Something in the archives. When I say I've never heard of you, I've _never_ heard of you."

"Do you have access to the Gallifreyan archives?" The Fool leaned forward eagerly, his heavily lined face lit up. "I've been cut off for...quite some time. I'd be interested to see how much things have progressed out there in the universe, and the Time Lords are the very devil for detailed analysis."

The Doctor looked over the old man, carefully guarding his expression. Gallifrey was inaccessible, as were the legendary archives. If he said that, there would be further questions. The Fool was old – that was entirely obvious. He was surrounded by age and antiquity, from his TARDIS to the almost tangible cloak of heavy time and loneliness that seemed to settle on his stooped shoulders.

Clara elbowed the Doctor in the ribs, which prompted a flare of anger in his eyes. The Doctor kept it in check, and avoided the subject of Gallifrey.

"Haven't any of the other ships – the hundreds, the thousands of ships out there – told you _anything_ about the outside universe?" the Doctor asked.

"Are you sure you don't want some of this tea?" the Fool asked, gesturing to the tray. "It's really quite ingenious, the things people come up with. And no, not really. Only scraps, I'm afraid. There tends to be a lot of damage when a ship pancakes against a hard surface at high velocity. Data cores and informational systems tend to be delicate."

The Doctor nodded slowly, and let the Fool continue.

"That's why I needed one of my own race, you see. Our ships don't so much impact as insinuate themselves into a location."

"Oh, I've crashed a few times." The Doctor said offhandedly. The Fool shuddered visibly.

"That can't be good for your, er, TARDIS's systems."

"We get by."

_We, _thought Clara. _But which we?_

"Alas, the damage to most ships is fairly extensive. Thankfully, I have a suppression field set up over a wide area around my capsule that stops _most_ forms of combustion."

"You can _do_ that?" The Doctor leaned forward, and absently picked up a biscuit.

"I collected a few little gadgets in my travels, " shrugged the Fool, "and some larger ones. I can't quite recall where I, ah, acquired the device that limits combustion but it's certainly come in handy. Not too many explosions, you see. "  
"I wondered about that." The Doctor admitted, chewing slowly. He didn't even seem to be aware that he was doing so. "And I don't quite buy it. If a race had developed a device that completely stopped combustion, I'd know about it. There _has _to be an excess of energy that the suppression field can't stop."

"Quite right! Well done." The Fool beamed. "I also use a hybrid Leech Module I pieced together from Sycorax and Cyber Empire technology to take the excess and store it directly into my own craft."

At that, the Doctor winced, and shook his head.

"That's incredibly foolish." he said, "The science is plausible enough, but almost insane. A TARDIS shouldn't be able to charge up on that kind of energy. You're probably frying systems you don't even know you have."

The old man tilted his head and echoed the Doctor's words back at him with a smile.

"We get by."

"What about people?" Clara asked. "Surely the lack of explosions and poisonous gasses and radiation and whatever else means that someone survives from each crash? Or at least _some_ crashes?"

"Sadly, I don't believe that there has been a single living being left on any of the ships that have arrived so abruptly." The Fool said.

"Except the Cybermen and the Daleks." The Doctor corrected.

"Hardy little buggers, aren't they? But you can't call them living creatures – not really. Not much of a life there. One has no feelings, and the other does nothing but hate."

"I think we can agree on that." The Doctor noticed he had the half eaten biscuit in his hand, scowled at it and wasn't quite sure whether to continue eating it or put it down. Clara sipped at her tea. It tasted odd – not _bad_ as such, but not quite right either. She frowned, looking at her cup. The Fool noticed.

"My little capsule's systems do their best to extrapolate all possible data from what we know about tea and then recreate it in the food dispenser, but as I've never had an actual sample she does her best with the little written data that we've pieced together from arriving Earther ships." he said apologetically. "I'm sure it's not quite right, but it's the best I can do."

"It's good." Clara admitted, causing the old man to smile gratefully. "Different, but good."

"How often do ships come?" the Doctor asked.

"Oh, let me think..." the Fool scratched his chin slowly. "There's no real order to it. Sometimes there are years – decades – between arrivals. Other times, I'll get several in a month. This is the first time I've had two within hours of each other."

"And one is Dalek." reminded the Doctor. "Other things that start with D include _dangerous_, and _dead._ You said something about a device – a docilator? - that would stop them."

"Poor souls." the Fool's smile dropped away, melting like icecream in the sun. "So many thousands of souls, coming from all over time and space. They heard my signal, curious and brave, but always ending in death. Always death." With a sigh, the Fool ended with an almost plaintive whisper. "I'm so ready to go home."

Clara looked at the Doctor, empathy in her eyes. The Doctor shook his head slightly, as if to say _ I know what you're thinking, but no. Definitely not._ Clara leaned forward and touched the Fool gently on one sagging shoulder.

"You call yourself the Fool, " she said gently, "That's got to be an interesting story. We have the Doctor here – he tries to fix people. Do you try to make them laugh?"

"That's not necessarily accurate." the Doctor cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I mostly fix problems, not people."

"Six of one, half a dozen of the other." Clara muttered with a shrug, keeping focus on the rapidly waning old man. "But you...why the Fool? It's a bit of a fun name and I'd love to hear how you chose it."

"We don't really have time for – " the Doctor began, then shook his head in exasperation. "Go on then, don't mind me. Chat about unimportant things. I'll just sit here waiting for something interesting to happen."

"Doctor, would you like a short, sharp visit from the slap fairy?" Clara asked with an exasperated huff. "I have her phone number. Now, please tell us why you're the Fool?"

"Well, " The old man straightened up a little, and tried to pull himself together again. "It is a rather a bit amusing, I suppose. In a way."

"Do tell." the Doctor sighed, giving in. In the battle between aloofness and curiosity, the c-word came out on top once more despite everything. Cautious, angry and irritable he might be, but this was a Time Lord outside the time locked Gallifrey. He might not like it, but the Doctor needed to know more. "Leave out no detail, however small and insignificant."

"You see, back in my first body so very long ago now, I had a teacher with a marvelously long and red nose. Nothing hideous, you understand, but it certainly had zeppelin-like qualities. And of course, children do so love to mock the mildly different. So I got into some mischief about it – among other things, of course." The Fool paused, his voice taking on a wistful note as he thought back into the deep past.

"I used to sketch pictures of this teacher in notebooks, with his unwieldy sniffer and leave them about the academy. Unflattering, amusing sketches. It made me somewhat popular, which of course increased my desire to be a bit of a wag. I started sending him bawdy love poems and signing them 'The Woodpeckers of the Arcadian Forests', that sort of thing, you know?"

"Once, I slipped a sedative into his morning cocoa and when he fell asleep in his chair in class, I hung a female academy student uniform from it and took pictures, posting them up around the academy. Don't ask where I picked the uniform up, that young lady has _probably_ forgiven me by now."

"So you were a bit of a rogue as well as a mischief maker?" Clara urged.

"A little." Admitted the Fool. "Well, more than a little. Nosey was only one of my targets, of course. I played pranks on many of my fellow students, and several of the more serious minded teachers. Attaching small antigrav units to the furniture in one classroom set to activate mid-lesson, that sort of thing."

"To her credit, " he continued, "the Magistrix teaching us differential temporal calculus carried on with the lesson though we were all upside down for half an hour. Then we had to sit through a test that way too. Smooth, but spiteful, that lady. Afterward, of course, I got a stern talking to. There were a lot of those."

The Doctor, affecting a front of boredom to disguise his actual interest in the silly story, picked up the Dalek energy booster module and began to examine it. It only took a few seconds for the sonic screwdriver to be back out, humming and singing to itself. The Fool looked at the Doctor curiously and then back at Clara.

"Am I that dull?"

"Not at all! Go on, please." Clara smiled winsomely.

"Well, if you say so. There were quite a few 'serious talks' during my time at the academy, my dear, but everything came to a head the day I thought I'd try the old Vanishing Room trick."

"What's that?" Clara asked. There was a snort from the Doctor, who spoke without raising his eyes from the energy booster.

"_That_ I've heard of. There was a long standing caveat that anyone who attempts a Vanishing Room trick got immediate expulsion from the Time Lord Academy. Nobody really knew why."

"That would be me, probably." the Fool smiled, mischief in his eyes once more. "You see, the Vanishing Room trick isn't really a trick so much as an exercise in physics, basic engineering and a little hands on carpentry."

"How does it work?" Clara asked.

"What you do, my dear – or rather, what you apparently _don't_ do these days – is tie strong ropes to everything in the room – all of the furniture and anything else you want to move about. Delicate or small objects can use string, which is of course a wonderful tool in any prankster's kit."

"Then, " he continued, "you rig up a rudimentary pulley system with the ropes leading out a single window. Halfway down the ropes will hang buckets of sand or rocks or anything heavy – I used the marble busts from the nearby library because some of those faces looked like they needed a good hanging. Do you follow so far?"

"In a general sort of way, " Clara nodded, "But not exactly."

"Ah, don't worry too much about it. You see, after you have the weights attached, you loop the ropes back through the pulley system, up into the classroom and attach them to the door – firmly enough to hold the weight of the busts hanging from the window, but loose enough to escape."

"Okay," Clara asked, "What about the carpentry?"

"Very important step, the carpentry. With a saw, you spend an industrious but careful time cutting deep into the furniture. You don't want to destroy it, you understand, but make it extremely fragile instead. It's important, because you _want_ it all to come apart but not until the trick is actualized."

Clara tried to picture it all in her head and frowned. She still didn't quite understand how the pulley system would link up, or even what a 'rudimentary pulley system' would consist of, to be honest. The Fool continued on regardless.

"The plan is that when the teacher opens the door, the rope attached to it comes loose – this causes the weights to drop with speed, gravity being a faithful mistress. As the weights fall, the ropes yank the furniture which then goes flying toward the window all at once." The old man took a breath, then continued, "As all the furniture strikes the window frame with force it breaks into pieces due to ones skill with a saw and everything goes flying out the window all at once, with gravity pulling the entire room out into the garden – much to the astonishment of the teacher."

Clara laughed at this as the image cleared in her head. She didn't get the basic engineering, but she could see everything being pulled out a window with speed and force.

"Can you imagine it?" the Fool chuckled. "One opens a door with their mind on Interspecies Politics or Temporal Stitching or whatever, and the rooms contents vanish on you with a loud fuss and bother? Can you imagine the expression worn on ones face?"

"I can!" Clara giggled. "That's definitely funny, isn't it Doctor?"

"The epitome of mirth." replied the Doctor tonelessly, still probing away at the energy booster.

"So then you started calling yourself the Fool, right?" Clara turned back to the old man.

"Not quite. You see, my dear, the head of the academy was out for a morning constitutional and his amble around the academy grounds took him right under that particular classroom window at the precise time that the Vanishing Room trick was triggered."

"Oh dear."

"Regretfully, " the Fool said, but his eyes spoke of mirth rather than regret, "the contents of an entire classroom landing on him, along with several large busts of vaguely felonious looking Time Lords of the past and a web-work of rope was enough to have me pulled aside for the most serious of talking-to's I've ever had, by no less than four separate authority figures. And after _that_, I had to speak to the man himself and that was a shade worrisome."

"I can imagine it would be." Clara commiserated.

"The head of the academy said to me that day – after he had uncovered himself and sought some minor medical attention – just one thing, before sending me from his office. Just one. He said..."

The Fool closed his eyes, and quoted.

"You're a fool, boy. You've always been a fool and, unless you start taking your studies more seriously, all you'll ever be is a fool. You'll never amount to anything, never accomplish anything of import, and never be anything more than a superfluous part of our society. You'll be a waste of time – even for the Time Lords."

That was unkind." Clara said.

"But true." the Fool shrugged. "I took his words to heart."

"You knuckled down, studied hard and laid off the pranks?"

"Goodness no, dear. Haven't you been paying attention?" The old man grinned. "I hung someones underwear from a flagpole, filled the swimming pool with a gelatinous pseudoform, slipped a combination of sedatives and laxatives into the drinking fountains and left the academy without graduating, never looking back. Stole a transport capsule, went off to prank the universe and called myself the Fool thereafter."

Clara laughed at this. The Doctor smiled thinly.

"And it was such fun, you know?" The Fool continued, waving his arms merrily. "So many worlds, so little time – even for such as us! I spent a good year or so hanging around with a crab-like species called the Makra who were quite a grumpy lot, if you ask me. I did manage to convince them that I was a minor prophet of some sort, and got the locals ending every sentence with 'according to the prophecy of Mai Boo-Tocks.' Almost got hung, in the end, so off I went again. Crabs don't really know how to hang someone very well. Not much neck to speak of."

"Next, I went to Earth. Wonderful place. Oh, those Vikings. They already had all sorts of myths and legends so it wasn't too hard to fit in with that and be a mischief maker for a while."

"Wait, are you saying that you're _Loki_?" Clara blinked. The old man laughed and shook his head.

"Not at all, dear. Those myths and beliefs were already in place. I just took advantage of them and did a pretty good job pretending to be the Lie-Smith for a while. After I got bored with that, I went on to the Horse-head nebula and hung around with a squidling race that lived there teaching them how to play the harmonica. They were worshipers of music, you see, but unfortunately the harmonica was very quickly declared a heretical instrument. Lost my first life there."

"How did you – " Clara was going to ask how he died, but then realised it might be a bit crass.

"Sometimes some entities just have no sense of humour. Best not to think about it, really. Bad things – well, they happen but should be ignored. Yes. Yes! Where was I?"

"Squids with harmonicas."

"Squids _reviling_ harmonicas, dear." corrected the Fool. "And yes. So I had my second body – big strapping one that was, too. Quite the looker, if I may humbly say so. I was out of there in a hurry, just one step ahead of the tentacles – apparently resurrection isn't part of the music of the universe either. Phew, I still can't eat calamari without feeling a bit odd about it, you know."

"So you've just traveled around being the Fool ever since?" Clara asked.

"Not so much traveling lately, of course." The old man gestured around vaguely, and spotted the sonic screwdriver in the Doctor's hands. "What do you have there, lad?"

"It's a sonic screwdriver." the Doctor said, "a thoroughly useful tool and sometimes _deus ex machina_ for all sorts of things. Had it for centuries, still discovering uses for it. This energy booster you took from the Daleks – and I'm really not sure I want to know how you managed that without disturbing them – well, it's a bit dodgy. I've done what I can, but the thing was too shaken up in the crash to be of much use. Its crystal matrix is cracked."

"Oh, it'll manage for a while, " the Fool leaned forward and took the module from the Doctor's unresisting hands. "It's not as if we'll need it for long, not now that you're here! Oh. Ohhh! OH! I remember what I was supposed to be doing! The docilator, of course! Those pesky little Daleks will be activating themselves and getting up to mischief and I really don't want them getting a firm foothold around here. Makes for trouble, that does." the Fool got to his feet and shuffled toward the door. "I'll be back in a minute or two! Enjoy the tea!"

Clara watched the door close as the old man left the tea room. She had a smile that she couldn't quite remove. The Fool was nice, friendly and sweet – and quite funny, too.

"I like him." she said honestly.

"Yes, and why wouldn't you? He's _fun_." the Doctor muttered.

"You can be fun." Clara raised an eyebrow. "At least, I think you can. You can be fun, can't you? It didn't all dribble out your ears and drip away when you were regenerating, did it?"

"You liked me better when I was fun." the Doctor rolled his eyes. His voice was sharp and bitter. Clara realised that he must have been a little jealous.

"I liked you better when you weren't overly hostile, broody and taking instant offense to everything I say, Doctor." Clara told him with complete honesty. The Doctor, to his credit, didn't get any more angry at this. Despite everything, he was still smart enough to realise that Clara was calling him out for being, well, a bit bratty.

"Point." acknowledged the Doctor. "But you can't trust him, you know."

"Oh? Why not?"

"Because he's the Fool."

"You said you didn't know him."

"I don't, " admitted the Doctor, "but the names we choose define who we really are. A fool isn't just a practical joker, handing out funny remarks and performing amusing acts. Even in Earth history a fool or jester is more than he seems."

"Well, he's a Time Lord too." Clara shrugged.

"Exactly." the Doctor said firmly. "He has hidden depths, this Fool does. Trust me on this."

"He's an old man now though." said Clara. "What's he going to do, chat us to death?"

"A fool uses his own act of silliness as a distraction to serve his own interests. He's much more than a man in a silly hat and bells."

"I wonder if he ever wore something like that." Clara mused. She tried to picture it and smiled faintly. "Probably in a different body."

"It's probably that he did. Archetypes exist for a reason and stories always come from somewhere. We need to be careful." insisted the Doctor.

"You're jumping at shadows, Doctor." Clara dismissed his concern. "Ever since you changed you've, well...look, there's caution and there's paranoia. Everything you've said has been how you've acted before. You used to use silly as a defense. You used to be tricky and clever to disarm your foes."

"And I used to be funny." the Doctor shot back. "Until I died. I keep trying to tell you, I'm not the same man. It's not as if I just started behaving contrary, Clara. I'm _not_ the same jolly fellow in a different body and I don't know how many times I can stress this – I'm an entirely new personality drawn from subconscious facets of the whole."

"But you're still the Doctor." argued Clara.

"Yes. I'm still the Doctor. I just may not be _your_ Doctor."

There. It was said. A long and very pregnant silence followed, with neither Clara nor the Doctor willing to give birth to the next line in that particular drama. As the silence grew longer and more uncomfortable, and the Fool showed no sign of returning, the Doctor fought with himself over what he should say next.

He didn't _want_ Clara to leave, of course. At the same time, it would be unfair of him – and _to_ him – to pretend to be the same man he was when they first met. Still...

"That neutered Cyberman was a bit of a surprise." the Doctor ventured cautiously. "I wasn't expecting that."

"Me neither." Clara admitted, grateful for the topic change. "It was almost a brown moment – I couldn't move! But you...you jumped up and tried to sonic it without a second thought."

"Well, I couldn't have it shooting holes in you, Clara, nor your awful cardigan."

There was a small smile between the pair. Things weren't resolved, but maybe there was something salvageable there after all. He wasn't the same man, he'd said that – and deep down Clara knew it even if she didn't want to admit it. Maybe this was a shadow of what this Doctor _could_ be.

"Come on, " the Doctor stood up, and extended his still-strange thin and worn hand to Clara. "Let's go and find our absent host. I've never seen the inside of a Type Seventeen TARDIS before."

"What happened to caution?" Clara's heart leaped. _Maybe, just maybe..._

"Don't worry, you'll be walking in front of me." the Doctor replied.

_Well, maybe not._ Clara sighed inwardly.

* * *

Outside and far from the Fool's capsule, at the wreckage of the recently arrived ship came the soft whir of a Dalek emerging from the craft. It had been originally a vibrant blue but due to the arrival and impact its body was scored and blackened in places. Apart from a dirty appearance, however, the Dalek ran an internal check and found that it was completely functional.

A second whirring sound caused its top to turn and look back at another Dalek – this one red – emerging from the cavernous chunk of ship that remained intact. It, too, looked battered but functional.

"Report." The blue Dalek demanded of the red. There was a slight pause before it responded.

"Eighty seven Dalek units operating at acceptable capacity." Red Dalek stated flatly. "Craft is not salvageable without extensive replacement parts. Signal of Time Lord still broadcasting."

It's very telling of the Dalek psyche that no mention was made of the Daleks that hadn't survived the crash. Dead Daleks were obviously defective in some way, or they wouldn't be dead. The blue Dalek turned its ocular unit to the wreckage fields all around and let its own sensors scan over the area. An anomaly shone out, faint but definite.

"A second energy signature is detected. Our forces must be split – I will lead five Daleks to the original signal and acquire any Time Lord technology present. You will lead five Daleks to the secondary energy signature and obtain further data. Remaining Daleks will gather necessary salvage and repair our ship."

"Acknowledged." stated the second Dalek, cold and emotionless.

With no further instruction necessary, the Daleks moved out.

* * *

(Author note: I know we've been big on the talking and the feelings so far, and I think that's okay but it's time to get some actual action happening. From Chapter 5 onward, it's going to start to ramp upward. Thanks for sticking with me so far.)


End file.
